Manzo

It was a Monday. And this time it was my good friend Duarte’s turn to take me out for my bday dinner. lol
Naturally I don’t like going out too late on a work night, so he was kind enough to come pick me and Colleen up and eat in Richmond. =)

Manzo Japanese Restaurant(Izakaya)
8391 Alexandra Rd, Richmond BC
Tel#:  (604) 276-2882

Actually, I purposely didn’t want to drive because I was going to drink and eat a lot. lol That weird bloated feel after haahah Not a good combo for driving. hahahaha

OH! an important side note. PARKING HERE SUCKS! yeah, the back lot for parking is ridiculous. There’s barely any space available once you pass 630pm. Think Richmond and picture people who refuse to carpool and (I CANNOT for the life of me understand why) be nicer to other drivers and their cars. So! get there early and good luck parkin!

We got to Manzo early and there were already a few tables occupied on both of our sides. I enjoy this type of intimate dark setting. Its comfortable for some reason. I especially like the ONI mask on the wall.

Naturally I started with my favourite beer of all time, Asahi! lol Large of course, who orders a small these days? lol

They gave us some Raw Cabbage and a Garlic Soy dip to go with it as appetizer. I found this rather weird.  Too strong of a garlic?  Nopes.  Just right for me.  I just don’t see myself chewing on raw cabbage…

So, Duarte knows what I like to eat and he ordered us some Toro Sashimi.  Yummy!  But rather pricey though. Only 7 thin pieces here.  Not even enough for me to wanna share, lol The texture of the fish was delicate and it held its flavour pretty well.  However, I would recommend Sushi Garden instead for their sashimi portions. Waaaay more bang for the buck.

Yakitori Beef Tongue.  Need I say more?  Yeah, perfectly cooked, just right.  Can’t ever have beef tongue overcooked, its just not right.   It was well seasoned and perfect.

Miso Eggplant came next, the eggplant became very soft, tooo soft really.  It felt like mush.   Not much of a hit on the table as it was still there by the end of the meal.   Good flavour from the miso though but it was just overcooked and it would have been really unique if the y would have rather used a different type of eggplant like the Makhuea kind.  Small dwarf tiny baby eggplants from Thailand.

Okonomiyaki!!!!!!!!!!!!  I have to say this was a so-so only.  A bit of a miss due to the fact that I enjoy the osaka style better. Tons of cabbage and thick in design, crunchy outside but soft and ubber yummy on the inside.  What they served here is a weak, tasteless, flat version.   Which is about as thick as a ghetto pancake from Ihop. Did I mention it was rather flavourless.  No sell!

Colleen just had to have rice. hahahaa And so her order was a plain Onigiri!   booooooooooring

Duarte ordered one as well but it was the crispy on the outside version. Although the pix are placed together, his rice ball came super late and we almost forgot about it. lol

AH, now for some real food. Yakitori Pork Cheeks!   Holy cow!   Haha, soooo gooood!  Only thing missing is a sweet and sour sauce to dip.  Ain’t that right Colleen?!  The cheeks were perfectly grilled and had a really nice springy-nes once you bite into it.  Try it if you don’t understand the explanation.

And who can resist? WHO!!??   Yakitori Pork Intestines baby!  ALL mine.
Oh, right. the taste…………………it was awesome!  Crispy, soft, chewy, yummy goodness, an all around happy place. =]

This dish was a special they had for the night.  Don’t know if you can see well from the picture but it is a fillet of super deep fried Crispy Sole. They fried it so good that you can eat the bones and all.  Which I gladly did lol.  Have to say though, there wasn’t a ton of flavour from the fish itself and the seasoning they used wasn’t very strong. The vinegar dip they accompanied it with did all the work and was a nice touch.

Steamed Clam Sakemushi, the name says it all.  Despite the double naming,  ‘mushi ‘ means to steam….where as ‘sake’ is sake!  So you take a bunch of manila clams and you basically steam them in a mixture of sake, ginger and soy….here is the problem, didn’t taste much sake, didn’t taste much ginger, and definitely not much if any soy sauce was used.  EPIC FAIL here!  The only plus side is that the clam pieces were rather big and I liked the bowl they served it in.

Nabeyaki Udon.  This dish was recommended by our server and it was rather good if I must say so.  The broth was nice and tasty.  Not over powering in flavour and had a good clean feel to it.  I would also recommend this udon on a cold rainy night lol.

Braised Pork Belly or Kakuni is what they called this dish.   Sadly I was too full to try this dish (hey, it happens) so I’m going to need Duarte’s comment on this dish. lol.

However, I distinctly remember him forcing me to taste this as it was really good and it was one of those ‘you have to try this’ dish lol. S o I’m going to say that it must be delicious enough to try  hahaa =]

All in all our dinner was a hit and miss on some items.  It got up there price wise but we all enjoyed ourselves and had a really good time hanging out together.  The service was both attentive and respectful.

Post by Marv